Vol 2 Chapter 5. Past Ties Part 8

“You knew that I told her to watch over you.”

Yae Jinrang’s voice fell cold over Woo’s head, colder than winter frost. For an ordinary person, just sensing the killing intent in that voice would have been enough to make their knees give out.

But Woo only lowered his head in silence.

“Why didn’t you send the message through her?”

Jinrang’s hand gestured subtly beyond the forest, pointing with uncanny precision to the very spot where Yeonjin was waiting for Woo. Even with the bamboo thicket draped in white, detecting the presence of an untrained civilian was effortless for Yae Jinrang.

“It’s better she doesn’t know. She’s a good person.”

It was the first time Woo opened his mouth.

He had come to believe this more and more as he got to know Yeonjin. Strength was power, yes, but for someone who couldn’t protect themselves, it could just as easily become a double-edged sword. She knew nothing about the relationship between him and the Lord of Heukcheon, and that was for the best.

That a mere servant dared to request a meeting with the Lord of Heukcheon, and that Yae Jinrang would actually allow it, was enough for Yeonjin to grasp the deeper layers beneath it.

That was why Woo had to take a more indirect route. It was also why he told the Third Disciple, Kang Oh, to pass along the bribery ledger in order to obscure his real intention.

If Kang Oh were the one to present the bribery records tied to the Third Overseer to the First Overseer, Seo Mun-geumryeong, then it would naturally reach Yae Jinrang’s ears.

The Lord of Heukcheon knew his disciple well. He had the insight to recognize, even without being told, that it was not Kang Oh who had uncovered the records. It was Woo.

And that was exactly what Woo had aimed for. He believed that if he had come forward himself, Yae Jinrang would have taken offense.

“You call her a good person, but you didn’t realize she was watching you and reporting everything to me for her own gain?”

At Yae Jinrang’s biting remark, Woo answered calmly.

“She is a good person because she tries to take on even what she cannot bear.”

Woo quietly added,

“I don’t think she’ll be able to hide anything from the First Overseer. She pities me.”

As he lowered his eyes slightly, a hint of dignity settled over his face. It was just a thin veil of composure, barely holding, but there was something graceful in it nonetheless.

Anyone without a discerning eye would dismiss him as nothing but a servant in ragged clothes. But someone who could see past appearances would realize this servant’s background was not something so ordinary.

That was why they had tried to bury him deeper in the mud, to make sure he would never lift his head again. But no secret stays buried forever.

“Soft-hearted fools.”

His face twisted in disgust, but he didn’t press the matter any further.

“So, what exactly is the reason you dragged me out here like some damned dog?”

“I… I didn’t mean anything like that.”

Woo shook his head.

“Nonsense.”

Despite Woo’s denial, Yae Jinrang replied coldly.

“You knew exactly how I would react once that ledger ended up in my hands.”

“Whatever your intentions, you did manipulate the situation to get the First Overseer to act just as you wanted.”

“I’m sorry.”

At Woo’s trembling voice, Yae Jinrang let out a scoffing laugh.

“You really are just like her. That wretched blood running through your veins… always thinking it’s only natural to move others around as you please, willing to use whatever means necessary to paint the picture you want.”

Part of the Yae Jinrang’s rebuke was directed at Woo, but the rest clearly spilled over onto someone else who overlapped in his thoughts.

After unleashing his frustration on Woo, Yae Jinrang pressed his fingers to his brow, as if a headache were coming on. There were very few people in the world who could stir that kind of emotion in him. One of them was no longer among the living, and the other was not the man standing before him.

At the very least, Woo had the decency to draw the line somewhere. But because he had been born and raised by Seol Buyeong, Yae Jinrang couldn’t help seeing glimpses of her in him, and it made him irritated.

“Fine. Why did you call me out in such a rush? You agreed that we should keep contact to a minimum.”

“The Third Disciple’s memories… it seems they’re beginning to return.”

Yae Jinrang, who had been rubbing his temple, suddenly opened his eyes. In the next instant, Woo was yanked through the air as if someone had grabbed him by the collar.

It was the Void Grasping Technique, a martial skill said to be usable only by those who had reached the Profound Realm.

“…What did you say?”

A rough, strained voice came from Yae Jinrang’s lips.

Woo didn’t flinch even as his throat was being crushed. It wasn’t that he trusted Yae Jinrang wouldn’t kill him. His eyes simply held no will to resist.

“I saw… the signs… like this…”

His breath came in broken intervals, words scattered and faint. But even then, there wasn’t a hint of survival instinct in Woo’s eyes. The emptiness in them made Yae Jinrang recoil.

Woo was hurled to the ground by the force still holding him. He rubbed his throat briefly, then continued speaking.

“Sometimes he pauses, like he’s sensing déjà vu. He talks about a past he can’t fully remember and often presses his brow, like he’s in pain.”

Despite Kang Oh’s habit of never speaking about his condition or revealing anything personal, Woo described his actions as if he could read them from the palm of his hand.

“And?”

“He said it once before too. That he felt like… he had lost me once already.”

Woo’s voice was hoarse from being choked, but he showed no sign of emotion. He seemed to believe his only task was to report on Kang Oh’s condition. There was something almost terrifying in that blind sense of duty.

Yae Jinrang ran a dry hand across his face. So this really was a matter worth deciding a meeting over.

“This is why I didn’t want you near him. Your very existence is a trigger.”

He bit off each word as if chewing through them, his tone laced with a fury too deep to put into words.

At the same time, there was a heavy sense of resignation.

“If his memories return this time, Kang Oh will go mad. This isn’t just a matter of personal will. His soul had been shaken to its core, and it had only just been held together. Now the thread keeping it in place is coming undone. He will collapse from the inside out.”

Woo bit down on his lip.

Yae Jinrang had warned him time and again that once the thread starts to unravel, there’s no putting it back.

And yet, he couldn’t let go.

Because this wasn’t someone else. This was Ye Kang Oh.

“Is there… no way?”

Woo grabbed at Yae Jinrang’s leg as he asked. There was a kind of desperation in him that didn’t seem possible given how weak his body looked.

Feeling the weight of that desperation in his grip, Yae Jinrang furrowed his brow. After a moment of silence, he finally spoke.

“Do you know why the forbidden arts are forbidden?”

Woo lowered his eyes. Rooted in the righteous sect, he knew a great deal about the forbidden technique and the way of the demonic path, enough to fill ten books. But standing before Yae Jinrang, the one at the very peak of the demonic path, he felt his knowledge was insignificant and not worth speaking.

He truly had shallow knowledge.

“It may be convenient, but it’s not without risk. That technique forcibly channels qi into the lower dantian. Just like how those who cultivate their strength through pure internal practice are less likely to suffer deviation than those who take shortcuts, the same principle applies here. The memory seal was used to save him, but its nature remains unchanged.”

Woo eyes lost it light.

“Do you think I’m happy with this situation?”
Yae Jinrang snapped, his expression thick with despair.

Ten years ago, even if heaven and earth had borne witness, he hadn’t wanted to get involved in the disappearance of the Lord of Baekragung.

“I got the signal that the mechanism at the Gansu had been triggered. I rushed over, but what did I find? That damned Lord of Baekragung, barely clinging to life, clutching a child to his chest. And that boy turned out to be the son of Yae Jinseo, my own sister.”

It wasn’t that he didn’t carry even the faintest hope. After all, only one person besides him knew of that place.

Maybe, just maybe, someone long dead had returned in spirit. Maybe they had come to finally keep their promise.

If that were the case, he would have slapped them across the face the moment they appeared, maybe even used a soul-binding technique if he had to. That’s the kind of foolish hope he was holding onto when he rushed over, only to find Dan Woo Hyo, the current Lord of Baekragung.

That absurd flicker of hope turned ice cold, and in its place came rage. If the dead have any dignity, then that face has no right appearing in that place.

If Yae Jinrang were to name the two people he hated most under the heavens, the first would be Seol Buyeong. The second was her son, Dan Woo-hyo.

He had already delivered justice with his own hands to every one of his enemies. The only ones left were those he wanted to kill but couldn’t.

No… now that he thought about it, there was one more who had slipped through his grasp.

Dan Baekhun, the former Lord of Baekragung, now dead and gone. He was the one who had started this dreadful chain of resentment and ruin.

“I spent my entire life trying to bring peace to the martial world. I never thought I’d have to witness such turmoil again. That’s why I did everything I could to keep you alive, for that child who held onto you like you were his last hope.”

With a trembling heart, Yae Jinrang introduced himself to the boy as his uncle. But young Kang Oh, who had never once met that relative in all his burdened years, looked only for Dan Woo Hyo.

“My nephew barely came to his senses and immediately asked where you were. Telling him you had died became my bitterest regret.”

At that time, Dan Woo Hyo was more corpse than man. Yae Jinrang had used every form of alchemy and forbidden technique he knew to keep his heart beating and his soul tethered to the living world.

He believed that if he told the boy he was alive, only for him to die afterward, it would cause an even greater shock. That was why he hid the truth. But in that moment, the boy’s world collapsed.

Tears streamed from those dark, deep eyes without end. A hand had reached out to comfort him, but he slammed his forehead straight into the ground. Even Yae Jinrang, a master of the Profound Realm, couldn’t react in time.

It wasn’t just a moment of self-harm driven by grief. He had truly wanted to die.

Yae Jinrang wrapped his own hands around the bleeding boy’s head. Kang Oh hadn’t screamed or tried to fight. His intent to die was so absolute that it left Jinrang in shock.

To young Kang Oh, the words that Dan Woo Hyo had died meant only one thing.

That his entire world had ended.

Fortunately, Yae Jinrang was well-versed in all kinds of forbidden technique. Among the spells he had learned from the left-hand path was a memory-altering technique. In a hurry, Jinrang sealed the boy’s memories and, when the boy woke, introduced himself as his uncle.

The problem was that Kang Oh’s memories had returned, along with the very words, “Dan Woo Hyo is dead.”

“And of all times, I just had to say the word ‘uncle,’ and that word triggered everything. Just speaking it made him realize you was gone. And then… I had to cast the spell again.”

When Yae Jinrang urgently asked what he remembered, Kang Oh said he felt like he was trapped in a never-ending nightmare, because every time he tried to remember what had been erased, it came back, over and over again.

For someone like Yae Jinrang, who had always prided himself on being able to manipulate any situation with clever tricks, it was maddening. Never before had a spell unraveled so easily just because it brushed against something fragile.

Perhaps it was the blood of the Yae family itself. Maybe their constitution simply didn’t respond well to sorcery. Or maybe it was just that Kang Oh’s desperation to reach Dan Woo Hyo, even from beyond death, had been that intense.

Yae Jinrang didn’t want to admit it, but memory was fragile. Touch one thread, and everything connected to it would start to unravel with it.

In the end, he had to make a decision. Even if he kept his words vague, once the boy saw that Dan Woo Hyo was still alive, he pressed his tear-streaked face into the man’s palm and cried in relief. From that moment on, Yae Jinrang truly began clinging to the idea of saving Dan Woo Hyo.

Because if Dan Woo Hyo didn’t survive, how could his only nephew possibly stay sane?

For a time, the boy even called him Uncle. It was a title he had acquired far too suddenly and undeservedly, but Yae Jinrang figured that the man who had returned his nephew to him deserved to be spared.

After all, Yae Jinrang had seen for himself just how desperately Dan Woo Hyo had fought to protect the boy.

Because he had seen it all. The collapsed edge of the cliff, the pile of fallen rocks before the formation’s base, fingernails torn off, trails of blood leading into the cave, and broken limbs. After shielding the boy with his own body at the edge of the cliff, Dan Woo Hyo must have crawled across the ground during a brief moment of regained consciousness, trying to escape the rain. If his body temperature had dropped any further, it could have resulted in death. Even while clinging to life, it wasn’t for his own sake. It was to protect the boy in his arms that he forced his heart to keep beating.

It was during this desperate crawl that he must have triggered the mechanism hidden within the formation, which is what drew Yae Jinrang to that place.

It felt like destiny had led him there.

But the real trouble began after they brought him back. No matter how many rare medicinal herbs and elixirs they poured into him, Dan Woo Hyo remained like a broken vessel. They could only speculate that, in trying to protect the boy, he had pushed himself past his limit, perhaps drawing on his core energy or even his innate life force beyond what his martial techniques allowed.

His breathing was faint, sustained by only the thinnest thread.

Then came the seizure. It happened when Yae Jinrang was away for a brief moment. He had sent Seo Mun Geumryeong to the vault to retrieve urgently needed medicine, but during that time, the child witnessed Dan Woo Hyo arching in agony, his eyes rolling back.

By the time Yae Jinrang returned, Dan Woo Hyo’s heart had already stopped.

Yae Jinrang kicked off the ground and raced to Dan Woo Hyo’s side. It took him a full day and night without rest, but he finally managed to bring back the faint pulse that had nearly slipped away.

As he turned back, muttering curse words he hadn’t uttered since the duel with the Hyeolgo, he saw Kang Oh collapsed at the edge of the cliff like a puppet whose strings had been cut.

The boy’s mind was already on the verge of collapse, worn thin by the belief that he had been trapped in an endless nightmare. It was only the sight of Dan Woo Hyo, still breathing however faintly, that brought him any semblance of calm. Even so, his emotions had been quietly spiraling in places Yae Jinrang couldn’t see.

Had Dan Woo Hyo truly died before his eyes, the boy’s mind might have broken completely.

Even after pushing the technique to its limits, the memories kept surfacing, so he had no choice but to resort to the final measure. If even that unravelled, there would be nothing he could do.

Clenching his teeth and choking back the tears, Yae Jinrang sealed away every last piece of the boy’s memories, including those of his sister, Yae Jinseo, who might still be alive somewhere.

He gave up the right to be called an uncle, just to keep his nephew alive.

Kang Oh should have been living the life he rightfully deserved.

Not as a disciple, but as a nephew. As the last remaining bloodline of the Lord Of Heukcheon, Yae Kang Oh should have been able to enjoy and possess anything he wished.

In the Central Plains, there was a clear distinction between those related by blood and those who weren’t. If it had been known that Kang Oh was his nephew, none of those filthy rumors would have ever existed.

Yae Jinrang buried his face in both hands.

He owed a debt to his long-lost sister, Yae Jinseo. A debt he could never repay, not even with a lifetime. And all he could do now was watch that debt pile up without end.

Even as the Lord of Heukcheon, someone with no reason to care about others’ opinions, Yae Jinrang’s life had been a sentence, tightly bound by shackles of guilt.

“How do you think it felt, having to accept a disciple’s bow from my own nephew?”

Woo remained silent. He didn’t dare guess at the depth of despair Yae Jinrang carried in his heart.

“I managed to keep that child under my wing, so I wasn’t exactly sad. But it was miserable, because that one last piece of my sister’s bloodline can no longer call me uncle.”

Yae Jinrang had saved Dan Woo Hyo through sheer force of will. To breathe life back into someone with no will to live was already a near-impossible task, especially when the one dragging him back by the hair was no less than a reaper from the underworld.

“It’s your fault.”

Yae Jinrang spat the words bitterly.

“It’s your fault.”

“Yes… Yes, it is. Because of me… it’s all my fault.”

Woo murmured.

The Lord of Heukcheon’s gaze sharpened. He despised Woo. Not for lacking the will to live, but for stubbornly swallowing every bit of blame directed at him.

“He was truly clever. He took after my sister. Sharp-minded, bold, and gifted in martial arts. No matter how chaotic things became, he held firm and never wavered. It made me proud just watching him. If my sister were still alive, she would’ve been happy to see how much her son had grown.”

Every one of those casually spoken words stabbed sharply into Woo.

If he were still the Lord of Baekragung, he would’ve been the one to witness Kang Oh’s brilliance.

“What? Were you not the least bit bitter about being stripped of the title ‘Lord?'”

Yae Jinrang grasped Woo’s chin and lifted it. Woo turned his gaze away.

Even his expression gave it away. This man held no resentment toward Yae Jinrang. He lived with his head bowed, submitting to everything around him. But there was still one thing he refused to let go of.

“That vicious greed for something that isn’t yours… you really do take after that damned mother of yours.”

Even among the swift warriors of Murim and across the vast Central Plains, no one could compare in beauty to that enchanting woman.

Woo looked at that face and thought,
So… yes, this man really does share blood with Kang Oh.

“You know what shame is, and still lower yourself so disgracefully, just like your ruined father.”

A hatred darker and deeper than anything he ever felt for Seol Buyeong spilled from Yae Jinrang’s mouth.

Woo had heard Yae Jinrang mention his mother before, but hearing him speak of Dan Baekhun was almost unheard of.

Woo’s body trembled faintly.

“You’re still far from making up for what you took from me.” Yae Jinrang muttered. It didn’t even sound like he was speaking to Woo. His tone was obsessive, like he was clinging to a reason, branding it into himself, a reason to keep feeding his anger and hatred.